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Obamacare and Health Insurance for Sea Org & Staff (USA)

Lone Star

Crusader
As it stands now....and I've done some checking....churches are NOT exempt from Obamacare. The Catholic Church is suing the government over having to provide insurance that covers abortion and birth control. They are NOT suing over whether they have to provide their workers insurance. Of course the Catholics, being a lot more responsible than Scientology, have always provided their workers insurance. They even own Hospitals!! :ohmy:

Anyway, since Scientology forces abortion on SO females I think that the Catholic suit won't affect Scn at all.
 
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Idle Morgue

Gold Meritorious Patron
I don't think Scientology will pay - it is cheaper to pay the $100 a day fine. They are used to fines - they seem to rack them up and never pay them until they find a whale to contribute to the motion.

More than likely they will lie to the Govt. - that they only have 49 volunteers but are expanding to 10,000,000 members world wide! Heh - it works for Scientologists!! Why not the government. Certainly, a religious Organzation would never lie...:whistling:

MissManagement will probably sell the Mecca to avoid insuring his slaves and move his base to a country where they can have a little reality - where slavery is accepted and expected for the elite beings saving the world!

Poor Sea Orger's - I hope they all quit!
 

Purple Rain

Crusader
I don't think Scientology will pay - it is cheaper to pay the $100 a day fine. They are used to fines - they seem to rack them up and never pay them until they find a whale to contribute to the motion.

More than likely they will lie to the Govt. - that they only have 49 volunteers but are expanding to 10,000,000 members world wide! Heh - it works for Scientologists!! Why not the government. Certainly, a religious Organzation would never lie...:whistling:

MissManagement will probably sell the Mecca to avoid insuring his slaves and move his base to a country where they can have a little reality - where slavery is accepted and expected for the elite beings saving the world!

Poor Sea Orger's - I hope they all quit!

That's only $36,500 a year. It's better than nothing, but a bit disappointing given the cult's wealth.
 

failboat

Patron with Honors
I don't think Scientology will pay - it is cheaper to pay the $100 a day fine. They are used to fines - they seem to rack them up and never pay them until they find a whale to contribute to the motion.

More than likely they will lie to the Govt. - that they only have 49 volunteers but are expanding to 10,000,000 members world wide! Heh - it works for Scientologists!! Why not the government. Certainly, a religious Organzation would never lie...:whistling:

MissManagement will probably sell the Mecca to avoid insuring his slaves and move his base to a country where they can have a little reality - where slavery is accepted and expected for the elite beings saving the world!

Poor Sea Orger's - I hope they all quit!

Just to clarify:

The $100/day fine is (theoretically) for businesses failing to notify all employees by October 1 of Health Insurance Exchanges. That is required of all business in America that have at least 1 employee and $500,000 in annual revenue. I am unclear on whether this fine is per employee per day, or simply per day.

There is a $2000/year/employee fine for business with over 50 full timers who fail to provide employees with required health coverage once the employer mandate kicks in, in January 2015.
 

failboat

Patron with Honors
Well, what do YOU think is going to happen regarding Scn applying the law to themselves?

You brought it up, so tell us what's going to happen.

I have no idea what's going to happen. I am confident they will try to avoid it.

The reason I started this thread is because I don't know what will happen, and I was hoping to start a discussion about it with knowledgeable, informed, interested people who care about this topic and might have intelligent contributions to make.

Also, I was hoping for more eyeballs and eventually a lawyer to comment on relevant bits of employment law and any exemptions that might apply.

Finally, I was hoping to point out to everyone that the law also has an individual mandate whose exemption doesn't appear to be available to Scientologists.

Unless they're below the poverty line and can get on Medicare, assuming the church has not covered them, they will still have to buy their own insurance.

AFAIK, Sea Org workers are not currently on Medicare. Maybe someone here can comment on that. My understanding is that recently, a Sea Org worker named D. Kevitt was in an accident that left him in an ICU, and that he had no insurance and was not on Medicaid.
 
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Purple Rain

Crusader
Just to clarify:

The $100/day fine is (theoretically) for businesses failing to notify all employees by October 1 of Health Insurance Exchanges. That is required of all business in America that have at least 1 employee and $500,000 in annual revenue. I am unclear on whether this fine is per employee per day, or simply per day.

There is a $2000/year/employee fine for business with over 50 full timers who fail to provide employees with required health coverage once the employer mandate kicks in, in January 2015.

So how much do you estimate they could be up for? I mean if they have 5,000 SO members in the US, that would be about ten million dollars a year. So that would be a significant drain. Would it cost them more or less to just provide the healthcare?
 

iHateDuplicity

Patron with Honors
SO members, from my own experience, get medical care off the public dole when they go to the hospital on a per-incident basis. They apply individually for welfare/government assistance based on the fact that they only make $50/week and are religious workers. Once old enough, I'm sure they go for any additional Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid they can get too. Whatever government or local programs exist, those are the ones they apply for so the SO has to pay for as little as possible for their "PTS" staff. And internally within the Cof$, it is nothing but blame-shame-regret put on the plate of those who are sick or injured, making them wrong for distracting from the planetary clearing business because of their bodies.

Knowing how the Cof$ tightwad finance personnel think (and I do), they are going to fight Obamacare tooth-and-claw to the very bitter end before they pay one dime towards any medical insurance coverage for SO members. They will milk the public dole for as long as they possibly can down to the last drop. That is how the Cof$ rolls.
 

Lone Star

Crusader
I have no idea what's going to happen. I am confident they will try to avoid it.

The reason I started this thread is because I don't know what will happen, and I was hoping to start a discussion about it with knowledgeable, informed, interested people who care about this topic and might have intelligent contributions to make.

Also, I was hoping for more eyeballs and eventually a lawyer to comment on relevant bits of employment law and any exemptions that might apply.

Finally, I was hoping to point out to everyone that the law also has an individual mandate whose exemption doesn't appear to be available to Scientologists.

Unless they're below the poverty line and can get on Medicaid, assuming the church has not covered them, they will still have to buy their own insurance.

AFAIK, Sea Org workers are not currently on Medicaid. Maybe someone here can comment on that. My understanding is that recently, a Sea Org worker named D. Kevitt was in an accident that left him in an ICU, and that he had no insurance and was not on Medicaid.

I've recently researched the Individual Mandate aspect of Obamacare. The Sea Orgers don't make a lot of money, so next year the fine for them will be $95. The following year I think it's $200 and by 2016 it will be almost $700, or maybe more. Oh crap I'll look that up and post it.

Anyway....What I found to be interesting about the Individual Mandate is that Congress put a provision in there that the IRS has no enforceable arm to collect the "fine"...Oh I'm sorry Judge Roberts says it's a "tax".....Obama said it's a "fine". Oh well...Just words. My point is that unless you have a refund coming the IRS has no way to MAKE you pay the Obamacare tax as an individual. You can just ignore it. Sure they'll send you letters and tack on interest, but they can't go after your property or bank accounts, nor can they garnish wages to collect the Obamacare Tax. My bet is that DM just says, "Fuck it...don't pay it".

However, I do not know what enforceable arm the IRS was given with regards to businesses and organizations. May be a whole nutha matter there.
 

Udarnik

Gold Meritorious Patron
As it stands now....and I've done some checking....churches are NOT exempt from Obamacare. The Catholic Church is suing the government over having to provide insurance that covers abortion and birth control. They are NOT suing over whether they have to provide their workers insurance. Of course the Catholics, being a lot more responsible than Scientology, have always provided their workers insurance. They even own Hospitals!! :ohmy:

Anyway, since Scientology forces abortion on SO females I think that the Catholic suit won't affect Scn at all.

And in true Catholic fashion, they are dissembling about their "persecution". Up until Obamacare, the states could decide if they had to provide birth control in their insurance plans. In fact 28 states already require it, and the Church has not made a peep in protest, until Obama put it on the national agenda. Why the fuck are they just fine doing it state by state, but it's sacrilege when Obama does it? I'm no great fan of the man, but we need to do something to fix the broken healthcare in this country, and not making more babies than we can afford is a good start. The command in the bible is be fruitful and multiply. You can't be fruitful with over-population, they kind of forget that.
 

Lynn Fountain Campbell

Silver Meritorious Patron
...they are going to fight Obamacare tooth-and-claw to the very bitter end before they pay one dime towards any medical insurance coverage for SO members.

Um... who is going to do it, since little Davey has to do everything around there, and he has his hands full, trying to stay out of court these days. :biggrin:

Lynn
 

Lone Star

Crusader
Um... who is going to do it, since little Davey has to do everything around there, and he has his hands full, trying to stay out of court these days. :biggrin:

Lynn

Yes! And besides it's too late to fight it. It's in the system and it's the law now. The IAS failed to prevent this "suppression"!! Lol!! I ask one of my still-in friends sometimes, "Just what the hell is the IAS doing with all that money?" Of course he has no clue as he writes another check. :duh:

Personally I think Obamacare is going to fall apart without meaningful changes being implemented. Mostly something will have to be done to control costs, which this law will do the opposite IMHO. The individual mandate is weak and I don't think it's going to do anything to help curtail rising cost. Lawsuit abuse needs to be addressed....Scamming the system with phony charges, which happens with Medicare, needs to be addressed....and on and on and on.
 

Techless

Patron Meritorious
I also sorta wonder about how the 'religious' aspect of "we don't believe in doctors" - church and state thing, will play out. Can the gov force against personal/religious belief system?

My brain pretty much goes stupid when it comes to law interpretation, primarily cause I've seen/experienced first had that it doesn't always really exists anyway...and money tends to change it when/as needed.

But very interesting OP anyway! And only guessing really, but pretty sure it's the very last worry of Sir Midgey these daze.

HHmmm
 
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